Today we talked about the story you read and then watched the film you read a review of last week. It also talked to each one of you about taking the exam in June or not.
The exam will be 10 June here at the school.
In the short extra time we had after the break, we played a few FCE-related games: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Homework
Spend as much time as you can, at least two hours, with English over the holidays. Focus on your weak areas (e.g. Reading, Use of English, vocabulary).
N.B.: 'fantastic' is an extreme adjective - 'absolutely' is OK.
Homework and Vocabulary
We reviewed your homework from the last class (you might not have known about it if you didn't remember to check the blog for your homework) and you had the vocabulary quiz you begged me for and which I begrudgingly promised to give you.
Practice exam
Today you did part of a practice exam, more specifically the Reading & Use of English sections. Next week we'll continue with it.
Review this Quizlet list , which has vocabulary from the story you have for homework (below).
Read 'Sleeping', by Katharine Weber, which I gave to you in class. If you missed class, you can also read it at CommonLit. Answer the questions on the back of the paper.
We talked about how you will be doing parts of the next practice exam over the next couple of weeks depending on your attendance and other factors. You might want to bring a snack to eat during our break time for the next few classes if you think that will help you.
We also quickly reviewed your homework. You can find the answers to p.36 ex1 in this Quizlet list. I also encourage you to study this list if you need to. The answers for p.36 ex3 are: a) totally, b) extremely, c) absolutely, d) quite, e) very.
I also returned your texts about the photos from 2016, which I really enjoyed! I was not able to finish marking your essays and will return them to you next week.
¿De qué estarán riendo? - translate into English
Speculating or making a supposition
The last time we looked at some photographs, we more or less knew what was happening in them. But often on the First Certificate (and in life) you often have to guess what his happening.
We looked at some ways to do this and considered the following from Spanish grammar:
Especulación o suposición sobre un hecho en el presente:
Tendrá muchos deberes, será por eso que está tan estresada.
Debe tener muchos deberes...
Es posible que tiene muchos deberes...
We translated these three sentences into English using the modal verbs 'must' and 'might'. We also talked about similar forms such as:
modal + V (e.g. 'She might have a problem')
modal + be + adjective (e.g. 'She might be upset because ...')
modal + be + V-ing (e.g. 'She might be sleeping now')
What about when we want to speculate about what happened, i.e. the past?
Especulación o suposición sobre un hecho en el pasado:
Habrá tenido una avería, por eso no ha llegado.
Debió tener una avería...
Es posible que tuviera una avería...
We also translated these into English (using 'must have' and 'might have') and
We also considered how to pronounce them in reduced forms:
must have -> must've -> 'musta' (must of)
might have ->
could have ->
must be ->
might be ->
Finally, we also used the Grammar section on p.96 in your book to work on the grammar for this a bit more and used the images on p.123 for Speaking part 2 practice.
Whodunnit
On the piece of paper I gave you, write short answers to these three questions:
What did you do on Saturday night?
What is one of your favorite books or films?
What was the last thing you ate before now?
I'll explain what to do after this. Pay attention to your pronunciation - practice using reduced forms.
John Lewis Christmas ad
First, some vocabulary for talking about the video:
I'll explain what we're going to do with this - just putting the links here so we can find them easily.
Today we reviewed your homework and then talked about the importance of maintaining contact with English over the holidays.
Films, videos and music are great ways to do this. Many of you have told me you've watched some episodes of The Walking Dead after the activity we did in class 8, for example, but anything you're interested in watching is going to be helpful. My favorite series as of late is Stranger Things - if you don't know what else to watch, check it out!
If you enjoyed the game we did in Class 8 (50 Ways to Be Killed by Zombies), then you could play that one and that would be great contact with English as well. Or see the list of Interactive fiction games I posted below for other games, many of which are a bit less gory.
Maintain contact with English. Write three short texts about three different times you had contact with English (see example below), or, if you didn't have contact with English, just write three short texts where you explain to me something you did that day.
Example
I watched Captain Fantastic, a film about a father and his children who live in the wilderness. Years earlier, the father and his wife decided to take their kids to bring them up in the wilderness. The kids were educated with the books they had in their library, but they also learned how to live in the forest as well as lots of practical physical skills such as hunting, rock climbing, etc. After a short time, we learn that the children's mother, who has been in a hospital, has died, and they want to go to her funeral. The father is reluctant to go because he knows his wife's parents are going to make things difficult for them, but the kids insist and they go. The biggest part of the movie is about the adventures they have and what happens when these kids experience the 'normal' world that the rest of us live in. Will they stay with their grandparents? Will their father be arrested for child abuse? Can these kids adapt to the life that the rest of us lead? Watch the film and find out.
